Jamie Gardiner reaches knockout stages in Albania

DUNAMANAGH’S Jamie Gardiner reached the knockout stages of the European Under-21 Snooker Champioinships in Shengjin, Albania, last week.

The talented 18-year-old came through a tough group that included Belgian professional, Ben Mertens, who is a former World under-16 champion and was the youngest player ever to win a match at the World Championships in 2020. Mertens showed his class all week, brushing aside most opponents, including England’s Liam Pullen 4-0 in the last four before sealing the title 5-1 against Austria’s Floria Nuble in the final.

And although Gardiner fell to a 3-0 defeat in their group stage match, the young Tyrone man showed his quality either side of that encounter with whitewash wins over Romania’s Maxim Ene and North Macedonia’s Blendijan Kjazimi to qualify for the knockout stages.

“I felt good after the two wins in the group and then the match I lost, he went on to win it and he played very well against me and didn’t really miss a ball, so I have no complaints with that result,” Jamie said.

After the group stage, Jamie progressed to the knockout stages where he met Welshman, Brad Ferguson and the pair produced a cracking encounter that went down to the wire. Ferguson drew first blood with a break of 50 in frame one, but Jamie comfortably won the second before edging a close third frame to lead 2-1.

Ferguson bounced back in frame four, which was also close, to force a deciding frame during which Jamie found himself behind with a couple of reds left. He dug deep and battled back well to trail by just two points on the blue. Both players had numerous chances but unfortunately for Jamie it would be his Welsh opponent who would seal victory on the pink, much to Jamie’s disappointment.

“I was disappointed because I had a good chance in the knockout’s but I just couldn’t take the good chance to win it. I just couldn’t get over the line unfortunately,” Jamie acknowledged. “I’ve still a lot of positives to take from the experience though, I showed I can live at that level and I made a lot of improvements. I know what I have to improve on, which I will do over the summer.”

Jamie is planning on practicing at home and further afield throughout the summer months ahead of the new season in September.